Protecting a National Investment: Gregory A. Lukow, Chief National Audio-Visual Conservation Center p.1
Program Description Collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH in Boston Preserves and makes accessible significant public radio and television programs Covers late 1940s to the present More than 68,000 items and growing p.2
Program Description p.3
Program Description p.4
Goals Coordinate a national effort to preserve and make accessible as much significant public broadcasting materials as possible Become a focal point for discoverability Provide standards and best practices for storing, processing, preserving, and making accessible historical content Facilitate the use of archival content by scholars, educators, students, journalists, media producers, researchers, and the public Increase public awareness of the significance of historical public media and the need to preserve it and make it accessible p.5
Content Initial Collection 40,000 hours (68,000 files) More than 100 participating stations and archives 2.5 million inventory records p.6
Content Overall Collection Stats: Place 38 states and 2 non-states (DC and Guam) submitted materials for digitization 12 states (on right) contributed above average amounts 12 states did not participate State Percent Massachusetts 27% Maryland 11% Minnesota 8% New York 7% California 6% New Jersey 5% Montana 4% South Carolina 4% Illinois 4% Wisconsin 3% North Carolina 2% Connecticut 2% p.7
Content Overall Collection Stats: Region Region Number of Assets % Northeast 19,202 31.1 Mid-Atlantic 14,974 24.2 Midwest 11,262 18.2 West 8,187 13.3 South 7,545 12.2 Pacific (AK, HI, GU) 905 1.5 p.8
Content Overall Collection Stats: Time To the best of our knowledge, content in the collection ranges from 1947 2013, although only 44% of records are currently dated. Decade 1940 1949 3 Number of Assets 1950 1959 1,057 1960 1969 3,687 1970 1979 2,950 1980 1989 6,587 1990 1999 7,999 21 st Century 7,591 p.9
Content p.10
Content New Projects PBS NewsHour Digitization Project CLIR grant to digitize the NewsHour collection American Masters NEA grant to digitize interviews created for American Masters series National Educational Television (NET) Collection Catalog Project CLIR grant to create a national inventory catalog of titles created for NET (pre-pbs) p.11
Content New Collections Ken Burns 8 complete interviews with historians for The Civil War Africans in America 54 complete interviews from PBS series New Hampshire Public Radio 86 interviews and speeches from candidates in New Hampshire presidential primaries from 1996 to 2012 Southern California Public Radio Award-winning stories chronicling endangered species and environmental issues in California WNET 67 NET programs p.12
Partnerships and Collaborations The Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation p.13
Partnerships and Collaborations WGBH Educational Foundation p.14
Partnerships and Collaborations The Library of Congress Ingests digital files into Packard Campus Digital Archive for permanent preservation Provides access at LC research centers to all AAPB programs Shares governance responsibilities with WGBH for curatorial, operational, and financial decisions p.15
Partnerships and Collaborations WGBH Educational Foundation Oversees Archival Management System Manages public-facing AAPB website Engages in station relations Shares governance responsibilities with the Library of Congress for curatorial, operational, and financial decisions p.16
Partnerships and Collaborations AAPB Executive Advisory Council Henry Becton Alan Brinkley Karen Cator Beth Courtney Gwen Ifill Norman Lear Deanna Marcum Senator Ed Markey Newton Minow John Ptak Bruce Ramer Cokie Roberts Patricia Steele p.17
Partnerships and Collaborations Ongoing discussions with PBS NPR APT (American Public Television) Arizona PBS (ASU) Austin City Limits (KLSU) KBOO-FM (Portland, OR community radio) KCTS (Seattle) KXCI-FM (Tucson community radio) North Carolina Now (UNC-TV) Partners of the Heart (Johns Hopkins U.) Peabody Awards Collection (University of Georgia) Radio Bilingue Radio Preservation Task Force Vision Maker Media (Native Peoples) WKAR (Michigan State) WRVR (Riverside Church, NYC) p.18
Partnerships and Collaborations Expanding Participation Ongoing outreach to stations and archives to encourage participation Establish a coalition of public media stakeholders to address future preservation and access challenges Develop a consortium of local and regional repositories for public media p.19
Services Scholars Complaints about Access I have long been frustrated gaining access to the vast audiovisual record of my period [Public broadcasting] programs remains almost impossible to locate and access locked in the collections of its many member stations Working to document recent American history without access to the pictures has been a real challenge [K]ey historical moments and events are lost to us forever p.20
Services The Online Reading Room (ORR) More than 13,000 programs streaming online Programs added periodically Online access in accordance with the copyright law of the United States, including the legal doctrine of fair use Access for research, educational, and informational purposes only Inclusion in the ORR determined by analysis of types of programs and examination of individual series and programs p.21
Services Genre Number of Assets Online Reading Room Stats More than 13,000 items (20% of the collection) are in the ORR Contributed by 65 participating organizations representing 36 states ORR content is 40% audio & 60% video Magazine 2,657 Talk Show 2,628 News Report 2,018 Event Coverage 414 Call-in 329 Documentary 286 Interview 112 Debate 98 Unedited Footage 70 p.22
Services AAPB can be of value to scholarship because of Geographical breadth to uncover ways that national and global processes played out on the local scene Chronological reach to document change (or stasis) over time p.23
Services Local History emphasis on diversity the history of the nation is many different stories, no one of which can be considered the main story a skepticism about finding common definitions of American nationalism or discovering common values among many historians of the 1960s and 1970s (quotations from historian Alan Brinkley) p.24
Services p.25
Services p.26
Services Helping Public Media Organizations The National Digital Stewardship Residency program Elevating local materials to national exposure Working closely with local stations to tap opportunities within their communities for preservation support. Offering assistance in developing grant applications Refining PBCore metadata schema for sound and moving images p.27
Users and Usage AAPB Website Usage (since April 2015 launch) 72,601 users 87,772 sessions 284,095 page views Average session duration: 00:02:12 Returning visitors: 17.4% New visitors: 82.6% p.28
Sustainability Management Agreement: through 2020; automatic renewal every succeeding five years Digital files: migration every 3-5 years Financial resources: planning to create consortium of major private foundations that funded public broadcasting programming Sustainability study: in preparation for 2017 consortium meeting p.29
Future Directions and Challenges A Centralized Web Portal for Discovery All AAPB digitized content discoverable through single searches Direct links to public media on other sites One-stop shopping Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) as a model Helps solve the separate silos syndrome p.30
Future Directions and Challenges Cataloging Challenges Full cataloging: one person working full time for 32 years Normalization and Minimum Viable Cataloging: up to 6 years Normalization: formatting dates, titles, splitting out types of titles; formatting existing data at a high level in CSV Minimum Viable Cataloging (MVC): 15 minutes per item, reviewing opening and closing credits; adding dates, titles, creators, contributors, publishers, copyright information, topic, genre (format), and copyright information. Digital humanities methods and tools: NEH proposal to enhance metadata using computational linguistic tools and the expertise of historians. p.31
Future Directions and Challenges Digital Media Challenges Varying file formats File failure when moving the files from one location to another file corruption File naming Wrappers, codecs, bits, and more p.32
Future Directions and Challenges Collection Growth: Library of Congress Digitize and preserve at-risk NET master materials currently on twoinch videotapes Digitize and preserve at-risk PBS master materials from 1971-78, currently on two-inch videotapes Digitize and preserve at-risk NPR master materials from 1971-91 on quarter-inch audiotapes Add LC materials to AAPB and make them accessible p.33
Future Directions and Challenges The Future of the AAPB Recognition: DLF Community/Capacity Award Growth: reaching out to community broadcasters Enhancement: reaching out to the educational community p.34
Mr. Gregory A. Lukow Chief, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (NAVCC) Library Services Email: gluk@loc.gov URL: www.loc.gov/avconservation p.35